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Thursday, April 07 2005 @ 08:06 PM UTC
Contributed by: David |
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I got a call a couple of weeks ago from a reporter who was working on a story about massively multiplayer online addiction.
After pointing him to people that I thought could really help him develop an understanding of what is going on in the MMOG world, I agreed to have him over to chat.
After spending a couple of hours talking, and a bit of time kicking around in Second Life, I think he started to see something beyond the "games are hurting us" hook he started with.
So, I was happy to see the final piece:
http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/033105/coverstory.html
I think it's an interesting summary of the online gaming phenomenon from an outside point of view.
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Videogames will really start to get more recognition once more developers try to use them as a form of artistic expression - the 'Citizen Kane' moment. The current focus is still, of course, money, but there are certainly many developers trying to express ideas through their games. I think there really needs to be more focus on expression, on getting the player to 'cry at the end of level 18' as Stephen Spielberg once put it. The more games that step towards this (and show that they can be even more profitable because of it!) the better.
As for MMOGS...I still haven't purchased one, mainly because I can't seem to get past the idea of paying for something each month that I've already purchased. That was one thing that kept me out of the arcades, because I'd rather be able to pay for the game one time and then play it whenever I want without having to put a quarter in (of course, another excuse I can use now is 'lack of time to play those games :P). Maybe if they had a lifetime membership fee or something for the game I would be less put off by them.
Second Life does sound a bit like an online 3D chat room I used years ago, Active Worlds. I think they are still up (version 2.0) but there was a lot of user-created content, a basic library of objects players could use, and, of course, subscription fees for those who wanted the whole capabilities of the program (i.e. creating new objects, protection from having your objects deleted, custom avatars, access to private worlds).
In 1999 when I was using Active Worlds, there were even some user-created 'games', which mostly consisted of mazes. I'm curious to know if mazes play a part in Second Life as some of these were quite ingenious, spanning whole square miles, using warps, sometimes warps to other worlds.
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"Until next time..."
Captain Commando